Senses
by Empyrean
Summary: A oneshot with Bella and Alice, concerned with the ten seconds after someone confesses their passion for the other. Reviews are welcomed and encouraged, but no flames, please. I obviously don't own these characters.


Alice and Bella oneshot

Senses

There was a span of ten seconds where the world hesitated. The walls around the pair held their breath, leaning in quietly to see what would happen. The slightly cool autumn breeze that had been coming in through Bella's open window was still now, anticipating. Silvery moonlight froze on the windowsill, peeking in at the two figures sitting on the bed. The same moonlight had washed over the pale marble skin of one figure a moment before, her form nearly frozen, but not quite, and was absorbed by the other, all pale, warm flesh and hotly beating heart.

Alice had seen this coming far before she herself had expected it. That didn't happen often, as having the power of premonition had long ago turned off the feeling of surprise that used to come with the unexpected visions. She thought that this particular vision had visited merely as a passing thought, that the passion, the desire associated with it was merely a passing thing. No matter how many decisions she made, though, the vision remained the same. The place would change, or the time of day, but it always ended the same. Alice shivered for a quarter of a second, the briefest quiver of skin that would not register to Bella's warm, human eyes.

The air smelled like autumn and Bella with only the slightest hint of clean laundry, sitting in a pile on the floor by Bella's bed. Alice's mind took a fraction of a second to process these things and she decided even more quickly that Bella's intoxicating scent was the best of the three. There was something utterly tempting about her pounding heart, sending that hot, sweet scent flying through the air that made Alice's passions stir.

Her eyes flicked up to Bella's. What she saw there with her sharp eyes was beauty. No matter that Bella was clumsy and awkward and knobby to nearly everyone else, Alice saw the grace there, behind her exquisite eyes. There was a warm soul there, one that swam in her eyes at that very moment, laid bare for Alice to read. She knew that Bella saw the same in her amber eyes. They were beyond words at this point.

Bella's slender hand was moving, lifting upward as her heart beat more quickly and she shifted slightly toward the small pixie girl beside her. She could feel the coolness of Alice's thigh pressed against her own, could feel the stillness around them.

Her mind was taking several seconds to throw incoherent jumble at her. _'Yes, yes, do it. She'll leave if I do. But I have to act. She must want…yes. Yes. Take a chance.'_

Bella was taking a slow, deep breath that would last longer than the next six seconds, would be cut short by the world starting again. Strands of her long brown hair fell over her shoulder, caressing the side of her face. Alice's eyes would not miss it, they missed nothing.

One second more and Bella's hand was halfway to Alice's face. The vampire's small lips were parted slightly, frozen in suspense. Bella's foot twitched involuntarily, brushing up against Alice's cool leg. Alice's eyes widened a fraction. She felt Bella's breath from where she sat, all warm and alive. A hint of the smell of toothpaste lingered there, moving over Bella's lips.

Bella's hand was touching Alice's face, hot flesh meeting cool marble. Alice drew a sharp breath, and the resulting sensation of Bella's scent washing over her, through her, sent her mind reeling. Two seconds passed in absolute stillness, the walls leaning in to see, to hear, to taste, to smell, to feel what was about to happen. The moonlight spilled in, caressing the bed, the floor, and the two figures aware of nothing but the other sitting next to them.

Bella was flushing, an apology ready on her lips that had not yet formed in her mind yet. She was shifting toward the amber-eyed vampire as Alice moved toward her in the same instant.

Bella was half a second from apologizing when the world started again. Alice was suddenly pressing her lips to Bella's, ice meeting fire, melting into the heat, drawing nearer. Hands were reaching, touching, mouths tasting.

A moth perched on the headboard of Bella's bed fluttered and took to flight at the abrupt movement, spilling dust from its wings over the tangled limbs of the pair below it. It caught the sudden breeze from the open window and floated out into the night and the light of the moon, the quiet sound of voices and passion following behind.


End file.
